"There's a few grey ones there," Frankie Dettori says, turning away and rubbing the side of his head. He does it because he has just been reminded that his 40th birthday is less than two months away. Also, perhaps, because he knows that there are not any grey ones at all. It all looks as jet as it did when he set out as an apprentice more than half his lifetime ago.

No sign of grey, and no sign of mid-life crisis either. We are sitting in a bare anteroom at Leicester racecourse, where a negligible crowd may or may not hang around until the sixth and seventh races, when Dettori will have his only rides of the day. Austere surroundings and a humdrum card, but the country's – perhaps the world's – most famous jockey is buzzing.

This is his time, the point of the season when the sport's marquee jockeys do battle on several continents in Flat racing's championship events. Today's Champions Day meeting at Newmarket, where he rides Saamidd in the Dewhurst Stakes, the most anticipated two-year-old event for many years, is on his home turf. From now until his birthday in mid‑December, though, he will be on the racing road.

"I love it, love it," he says. "It's all go and every weekend is great. It's the Champion this week, then after that I go home to ride Cavalryman in the Gran Premio del Jockey Club, which is the Italian King George. Then it's the Racing Post Trophy, then off to Australia for Holberg in the 150th running of the Melbourne Cup, and straight from there to the Breeders' Cup [in Kentucky]."

He arrived at Leicester in a "Royal Ascot" jacket, supports the Arsenal and has been based in or around Newmarket for two decades, but it is noticeable that Milan is still the place that Dettori calls home.

"It's where I'm from, my mum and dad come to see me racing when I'm there, and it feels like a real family thing," he says. "It's where it all started for me. When you pull up, you can see the inside ride where I used to ride ponies as a kid. It brings back lots of good memories.

"I'll be back there for my 40th this year [but] before that, I might go to Argentina for their Derby, and there's the Jockeys' Challenge in Mauritius, which is like a holiday, and then the trip to Hong Kong [in mid-December]. After that, I can have a proper holiday."

It is a gruelling schedule, even for a multi-millionaire sportsman who is never likely to turn right when he gets on to a plane. But it is one of his choosing, one that he has earned the right to enjoy, and when his birthday arrives, the normal mid-life analysis of what he has done and what there is left to do will not take long.

"I'm in a very lucky position," he says. "I've got a great job with a great stable and I love it. The great thing is to have the pressure off. I don't have to think that I've got to do this or that, because I've done it all. Now it can just live in my own time and enjoy it with some great horses to ride. I've ridden over 100 winners in Britain alone this year, so I'm not just sitting down and taking it easy, but I can get a balance. I can be a jockey, and have my family too."

Strangely, three events from the very short list of major races that Dettori has not won are clustered together on today's Champions Day card. It is no surprise that the Cesarewitch, one of the season's most competitive handicaps, is among them, and will remain so as Dettori does not have a ride. But he has also yet to win either the Champion Stakes, being run at Newmarket for the last time today, or the Dewhurst.

"I think [Poet's Voice] will be my 17th ride in the Champion, and it's my last chance [at Newmarket]," he says. "I was second on Halling, and I've been second twice in the Dewhurst.

"The Dewhurst is a tremendous race, and it's what the Dewhurst is all about. You've got a nine-length winner of the Middle Park, and Frankel [the odds-on favourite] as well, but Saamidd deserves to be there too. We've got to give it a go, and whatever wins is the best, plain and simple.

"No one knows how good any of these three really are, there's no obvious ones from their races that you can compare them with, and that's why it's so exciting. Frankel might have beaten nothing [in a 10-length win at Ascot last time] or he could have beaten some great horses. We just don't know. I'm more excited than anyone, I'm excited to see where we're at."

Poet's Voice, who broke through at Group One level when winning the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Dettori's beloved Ascot last time, is another partner with a leading chance now that his jockey has got him under control. "I was having some right fights with Poet's Voice earlier in the year," he says. "He ran away with me in the Middle Park last year and again in the French Guineas [in May] but now that he's learned to settle and learned how to race, he's a revelation. I'm just as excited about riding him as Saamidd."